I desperately need to switch web hosts - I currently host one small site with vizaweb and they have been a nightmare for about a year. Suggestions for an affordable, reliable, web hosting company, with prompt phone and/or email support greatly appreciated.

Professionally, I own an administrative solutions company for real estate brokers, and we get asked this question all the time by agents who want to set up their web sites. (We also manage all of our own IT, and over 15 years I've used a variety of hosts.)

If your needs are basic (simple site, blog, even e-commerce, etc.) then I'd recommend GoDaddy. You can buy a cheap hosting plan from them for around $4/mo, and they usually run a promotion where you can get your domain for $1.99/year assuming you don't already have one. If you do, they're also a good, cheap place to renew your domains through--less than $10/year. There's coupon codes galore for discounts and promos all the time, too.

Avoid Network Solutions and Register.com for domains--their service is terrible and they are expensive. They are also constantly embroiled in lawsuits and ethics complaints.

If your hosting needs are more extensive, you can try a premium host like Rackspace or 1&1. Both of these hosts advertise regularly in a variety of IT-related magazines (Wired, PC Mag, etc.) and have good reputations.

I would avoid HostRocket and HostWay. We dropped HostWay a long time ago because of their abysmal customer service. HostRocket has decent service, but their uptime has been TERRIBLE for the last 18 months, and tends to go out during peak hours. Once our contract is up with them for one of our dedicated servers, we're dropping them like a hot potato.

There's also a newer company out there called HostGator that has gotten rave reviews over the last 2 years or so. They might be worth a look.

Why? $54 a year, unlimited domains, no space limits etc. Hard to believe but it's true. I have 68 domains. I don't think that anyone else would allow you to have 68 domains all with email for a total of $54! Their control panel is great and the few times I phoned for tech support, they were able to help me in a snap.

...DOUGKD4MOJ

P.S. I use to host at home (my previous msg) but I couldn't justify the electric and heat from the computers anymore.

I've been using HostGator for the last 5 years and pumping-out 13GB a month across many sites with no issues. They've been very responsive to my questions and resolve issues very quickly (now they let me set my own DNS records and I don't bother them)

8-)

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"Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation." - Milton Friedman

I have my own hosting business and have been doing it since 1995. Send me a PM if you are inerested and I'll set you up with a great account at a great discount.

Jay... Would anyone be interested in a deep discount hosting account? I could set up a discount for members of this site. We have all unix servers with cPanel control panel. We host many business accounts, commercial forums, and have very reliable servers. ....

Hi Jay, I may be interested in your hosting services. I have several domains but only a few active in terms of much activity on the sites. However, I do require MS FrontPage server extensions on a couple of my sites. Obviously your Unix boxes won't help, but just curious if you may have a (dare I say it) MicroSoft box with FP extensions? If not, I'm still interested in your hosting a couple of my domains that don't need the MS stuff.Thanks,GD